LETTER: I remember power cuts and anguish during strike

Letters

reports regarding the miners’ strike in the 80s. Am I the only one that remembers a disruptive strike which led to power cuts and shortened hours for factories which happened in 1971? Maybe I remember it because my daughter was born in November that year. It was very difficult to keep a young baby warm, when an open fire was the only heating we had, and fuel was hard to come by. We had a very considerate coal merchant who used to bring us a bag of whatever fuel he could get. This, plus the difficulty of changing nappies by torch light during power cuts, has etched it in my memory. I have great respect for the miners in this area, and include several of them as my friends, but I think they were influenced by a radical union leadership. The present Labour Party seems to have become aware of the danger that a union trying to rule the country is not democratic.